Harmony guidelines are measured in two ways: unit harmony, which is expressed in tour intervals, and individual harmony through separated service, which is the length of time individuals spend away from their home base. The former is relatively easy to measure but can mask the actual effect of deployments on individuals. Work is therefore in progress to develop a common and effective system of separated service measurement. Currently, each service has its own procedures for measuring harmony. These take account of the different service regimes for manning and career management, training requirements and patterns of deployment. The different systems do not allow straightforward comparisons of the impact of separation on people to be made between services.
A common definition of separated service has now been developed and the service rules for recording have been harmonised. These harmonised rules take effect, for each service in turn, with the roll out of the Joint Personnel Administration system. This is now in operation for the Royal Air Force and, when complete for the Royal Navy (anticipated in November 2006) and Army (anticipated in March 2007), will allow accurate measurement of separated service across the armed forces.